Spin king

Quick questions to..

DJ Aldrin

Perhaps the finest DJ in Singapore and certainly one of the most well-known in South East Asia, Zouk resident DJ Aldrin, 39, returns to Dubai this week for one night only. Aldrin has been behind the decks since he discovered Singapore's mobile discos at the age of 14 and recently launched his own dance music label. Emirates Business caught up with him before Thursday night's gig:


Your sound has been labelled quite versatile, or all over the place. How would you describe it? I'm not so much a purist, so I embrace a wide selection of sounds. Being resident DJ at Zouk for 10 years, it's really quite a big room sound – so it's big and robust with elements of tech, tribal, electro and minimal. I think if you can put different sub-genres together in a nice flow, that should be shared with everyone.

So we can expect that from your set? Yes. But I will be testing my own productions at the same time, too.

You've been to Dubai before, obviously? The first time was last year at Neo. It was quite a mix in terms of crowd, quite expatriate, but the thing is the city has a great vibe. People came out totally up for a party. I expect nothing less for Sanctuary.

What new dance music trends can we look ahead to? It's hard to say – dance music is always progressing, always evolving. The downturn doesn't seem to be affecting the sound itself; like always, people are stealing from the past and from each other for something new. But it will perk up over the summer, that's when people tend to make music that lights up the day, uplifting sounds.

You also run a label – are you feeling the impact of the downturn as a label owner? In general, people are not really buying music online anymore, they're just sharing. So it's hard to make money from being a digital label. But the thing is, the industry has evolved in such a way that albums are now more a way of profile building, unlike in the past where you could make record sales. If people support your music, gigs start coming in.

What prompted you to launch a label? And what are your business objectives? When your music is being released by other companies, you don't have very much control. It's up to the whims and fancies of someone else. So I decided to do it myself. Now my main aim is to give artists from Singapore and around the region a platform. I want to grow the label now and am scouting around for more artists so we can work towards establishing a proper Asian dance scene. There are a lot of people dabbling in production, but most need to get their act together.

What sort of music do you listen to in your downtime? What's on your iPod now? Everything I listen to is for work, really. Downloading and listening to new tracks takes so much time, I really don't have much time to indulge myself. But the new albums from Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys are taking me back to the 80s, when I started out as a DJ.


- DJ Aldrin From 10pm at Sanctuary, Atlantis The Palm. Entry Dh100 upwards. Call 04 426 0000